Jemimah Wei On Crafting A Story Of Family, Sisterhood, And Singapore

Jemimah Wei’s mesmerizing, emotionally engaging first novel, The Original Daughter, which is group successful Singapore successful nan years betwixt 1995 and 2015, arrives this week aft a travel of much than a decade. She was calved and raised successful Singapore, wherever she launched a blog successful 2007, worked successful advertizing and was a societal media influencer. She started nan caller successful 2014. Five years later she came to nan US arsenic an MFA postgraduate student astatine Columbia. “When I touched down successful nan States successful 2019, I knew nobody,” she told me.

I was successful my precocious twenties and really making a difficult pivot, and truthful I had to build caller friendships from scratch. I’ll beryllium honest, for astir of my first semester astatine nan MFA, I felt for illustration I was connected Candid Camera. I wholly didn’t get nan American “How are you?” and I still deliberation group shouldn’t inquire questions they don’t want answers to. It took a while for maine to find my hit and people, and past conscionable arsenic I was getting a small much acclimatized, nan pandemic deed and I had to spell home.

The pandemic “totally and utterly felled me,” she added. “But I did commencement penning flash fiction, and slow started having an online organization of writers that way, and past nan adjacent clip I sewage backmost to nan States successful 2021, I returned almost pinch a vengeance. I was beautiful aggravated astir moving connected my book, but besides hung retired difficult pinch nan remainder of nan world that was besides emerging from lockdown, and made very bully friends successful New York that way.”

Through postgraduate school, fellowships astatine Bread Loaf, Sewanee Writers Conference, Hemingway House, and Writers successful Paradise, among others, she built a coagulated and supportive literate community. She precocious wrapped up a Stegner fellowship astatine Stanford. I was very fortunate to person specified a awesome cohort astatine nan Stegner, we’re very close. The symptom for maine is, being world and coming to nan States, I’m not rooted to a metropolis nan measurement calved and raised Americans are, and truthful I do consciousness for illustration I’m ever saying

goodbye to group I love. We enactment successful touch done a assortment of group chats, telephone calls, etcetera, nan measurement friends regularly do. But nan measurement it differs from regular friendships, I guess, is that we’re besides capable to corroborate each other’s creator reality, stock accusation and experiences truthful publishing doesn’t consciousness arsenic isolating, and commiserate and observe together.

This year, successful summation to launching The Original Daughter (beginning successful New York coming successful speech pinch Roxane Gay and including 3 bookstores successful nan Bay Area, pinch nan Singapore limb starting successful June), she is mentoring emerging fabrication writers pinch nan Singapore Book Council. “I deliberation it’s highly difficult to visualize a penning life aliases reality without examples aliases resources (see supra re: not that galore of us), and americium invested successful having those conversations backmost location wherever possible. The Original Daughter is an incredibly circumstantial Singaporean story, not the Singaporean story. I do dream of a world rich | pinch plurality and americium excited to facilitate that nevertheless I can.”

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Jane Ciabattari: What was nan seed for your first novel, The Original Daughter?

It meant a batch to maine to constitute a very circumstantial type of nan Singapore I cognize into people and literature, which is its ain type of immortality.

Jemimah Wei: There’s nary 1 seed, unfortunately, which happens erstwhile you activity connected a caller for adjacent to a decade. But here’s one measurement I entered nan novel: In 2014, I was penning nan communicative of a female who’d near her state only to find that there’s Narnia nowhere. She’s meandering down a dusty main thoroughfare successful nan mediate of nan workday aft stepping retired of nan office. And past erstwhile situation happens, to her ain horror, she takes alleviation successful nan guidance it provides.

JC: How did you settee connected nan title?

JW: Gosh, nan title took a agelong time. It started retired being called ‘Smaller Crimes,”’ which gives you an thought of wherever my mind was at. Then I changed it to “Fault Lines,” but I took truthful agelong to constitute it that nan beautiful and talented Emily Itami published a caller pinch that sanction successful 2021. So for nan longest clip it was connected my to-do database to find a caller title, successful my caput that marked nan modulation from backstage draught to thing I was committing to arsenic a existent book that I would nonstop retired to nan world someday. I sat down aft finishing my first draft, successful nan summertime of 2021, and came up pinch a database of words that related to nan book, and past put The Original Daughter together that way.

JC: How does The Original Daughter tie from your ain increasing up years successful Singapore?

JW: I very deliberately wrote successful a batch of things from my environs, things I didn’t deliberation we’d spot successful mainstream narratives. Being a Singaporean writer, I’m perpetually alert that location aren’t that galore of us, and that nan communicative of 5 cardinal group is an incredibly specific, varied 1 that is easy flattened into consumable narrative. So it meant a batch to maine to constitute a very circumstantial type of nan Singapore I cognize into people and literature, which is its ain type of immortality. I put successful nan animals of my childhood, nan routines and games, nan ambiance of rumors and intimacy that’s truthful endemic to nationalist housing, families, and community. But past I thought, why extremity there? It’s fiction. I tin do immoderate I want.

So I wrote successful nan names of my friends’ parents family businesses, I dropped Easter eggs successful location for my loved ones—affectionate nicknames, favourite haunts—I named 1 of nan schools aft my husband, nan cinema concatenation aft my filmmaker friend, etcetera etcetera. I cognize location is often that fearfulness that autobiography will beryllium publication into your work, particularly if you stock nan character’s circumstances of being millennial, female, and Singaporean, aliases [insert immoderate your circumstantial vectors of personality are], but that fearfulness wasn’t large capable to antagonistic my desire to build a individual literate canon that progressive each these things, too, nan Singapore I cognize and emotion personally, not conscionable generally. I cognize that historically women don’t get reprinted arsenic often, and we frankincense slice into obscurity; I’ll beryllium sad erstwhile that happens aft my decease and this fingerprint of my organization and bosom disappears. Please bargain nan book truthful we enactment successful print, convey you!

JC: Do you person a sister? Other siblings? How many? Did this guideline you successful penning this novel?

JW: Two younger sisters. It’s benignant of hilarious to maine now because erstwhile group inquire maine really my sisters will respond to my highly fictional caller I conscionable show them I’m going to fastener some sisters successful a room and get them to duke it retired for nan title of OG.

We’re very close, not conscionable emotionally, but physically: it’s our emotion connection to ever beryllium lying connected each other, heaped successful a pile, aliases gnawing connected nan other’s enarthrosis arsenic a joke, aliases yapping truthful overmuch we spell from yapping astatine nan meal array to yapping astatine nan bath doorway while nan different showers. I deliberation I worked a batch of that beingness intimacy into nan novel, which is thing an early scholar pointed retired to me—that nan characters successful nan book are ever touching, ever successful contact, that they’re very embodied. It’s thing I miss, that squishiness of friendly family life, now that I’m based betwixt Singapore and nan United States. We still nonstop each different video bubbles and sound notes connected telegram but it’s not rather nan same.

JC: Arin, Genevieve Yang’s younger sister, arrives successful Singapore successful 1996, erstwhile Gen is eight, “dropped into our lives afloat formed, astatine property seven.” Gen’s grandma explains that her hubby who had been politically “disappeared” and presumed dormant erstwhile her begetter was a child, had really been live and good successful Malyasia pinch different family. He’s conscionable died, and his concealed family tin nary longer spend to raise his gaggle of grandchildren, truthful her family is taking successful nan youngest. What was nan root of this root story?

JW: One point that stayed changeless done various iterations and drafts of this caller is nan thought of a related fixed aliases returned. It’s really incredibly communal successful a somewhat older procreation to person children fixed distant aliases raised successful an extended relative’s family, often owed to patriarchal ideas aliases financial concerns. As mentioned earlier, I’m a yapper, and arsenic a yapper you really announcement erstwhile you travel up against large silences successful your life, 1 of which was an consciousness from a young property that location were these immense silences astir exchanges successful my extended family and successful nan lives of group I knew. I utilized to capable successful nan silences pinch imagination, which was astir apt my first foray into fabrication penning arsenic a kid.

JC: You create a group of friendly scenes successful which Gen’s mother sends her an invitation to meet together astatine 2 a.m. astatine McDonald’s to person a backstage talk, distant from her dad. The first is earlier Arin arrives. They create a crippled astir eating French fries, which becomes a reference constituent passim nan book. At different point, Gen is punished for her actions, pinch her grandma and begetter upset astatine her. Arin bears witness, but does not act. I’m funny astir your consciousness of segment building, really you create nan family move unfolding done nan constituent of position of an eight-year-old who is smart and observant but besides excessively young to afloat understand big context.

JW: For that full conception you’re referring to, A Beginning, I knew that I would request to found nan family dynamics instantly and viscerally truthful nan remainder of nan book could bloom. For each of those scenes you referenced, I wrote respective versions of them, and past mixed and edited them according to what characteristic choices, method maneuvers, and scenic structures I thought would beryllium nan astir emotionally effective. The book moved from 3rd to first personification that way, it recovered its retrospective ledge that way, arsenic well.

I besides created aggravated family lore, a immense compendium of dates, individual events, section and humanities events, really those humanities events affected individual events, I added and deleted characters, and past I branched retired to creating diaries search nan psychological improvement of each characteristic complete nan people of their lives, highlighting nan years successful nan mediate wherever nan book’s events return place. Then I edited those diaries and tightened their psychology, and marked wherever Genevieve, our narrator, would beryllium mentally successful narration to what nan different characters were going through, truthful that I could select nan segment done communicative action and retroactive processing from nan communicative ledge from which nan book is told. I often joke that I astir apt wrote half a cardinal words earlier I ever queried my agent, but it’s astir apt much for illustration a cardinal words.

JC: Negotiating abstraction is analyzable successful families, particularly among siblings who are adjacent successful age. Even much truthful pinch this “dropped in” sister and this working-class family. How did you deliberation astir clip and abstraction erstwhile penning scenes erstwhile Arin and Gen are successful people schoolhouse and are getting to cognize each different and negotiating for abstraction virtually arsenic good arsenic for attraction from nan adults successful nan family? And really did you create an affectional relationship betwixt nan 2 of them truthful beardown that they tie up and motion a “contract of sisterhood?”

JW: I took nan thought of a fictional ticking timepiece very seriously—and looked for beingness manifestations of ways I could make condense and tighten nan framework for which nan communicative was happening in. As an artist, I’m very willing successful nan conception of suffocation, and what that does to an individual’s statement of nan self; I deliberation surviving nether an ultracapitalist modern nine whose organizing rule is profit and ratio tin beryllium fundamentally dehumanizing, and we find ways to cope, 1 of which is guidance done love. Love, which has, if you deliberation astir it, a precious inefficiency astatine its very guidelines that’s basal to its formation.

So I pressurized nan frictions that travel pinch loving a personification by narratively shrinking nan abstraction they had to share, giving nan characters nary unit valve materially, but besides emotionally, since they are arrested by nan guilt of wanting abstraction from aliases competing pinch nan different contempt their adjacent bond. One of nan ways I did this was having nan girls go almost codependent successful their desire to found themselves arsenic individuals pinch agency early connected successful nan book, which is what straight leads to nan statement of sisterhood you mentioned—at that constituent they’ve conscionable confronted their deficiency of agency successful nan look of outer condition and big decisions, which I deliberation is simply a benignant of decease of childhood. And it feels arsenic if they person only each different against nan world moving forward, which is simply a codependent doubling that leads to each kinds of problem down nan line.

JC: The teen years are difficult for Gen and Arin arsenic they discuss nan schoolhouse system. Gen aces nan O levels and has her prime of inferior colleges. But by nan clip she takes A levels, she fails, and her assurance wanes. Arin learns from her older sister’s mistakes, and excels by nan clip she takes nan A levels. She besides is simply a standout astatine acting. Sibling rivalry is earthy astatine this stage. Is it exacerbated by nan “original” daughter’s consciousness of being displaced by an outsider? And yet Gen is protective and helpful. Did you spot her ambivalence arsenic an constituent successful driving your plot?

JW: I deliberation we plaything wildly betwixt nan personification we are and nan personification we want to be. And I don’t spot that aspirational different aforesaid arsenic a mendacious self, but conscionable 1 of galore realities we could beryllium inhabiting if we made conscionable a azygous 1 of our micro-decisions otherwise astatine immoderate 1 time. We incorporate multitudes, and each that. At nan aforesaid time, successful Singapore, and successful galore capitalist societies, I think, there’s this consciousness that your scope of options and possibilities calcifies and narrows arsenic you grow, nan breadth of what life tin beryllium closing successful astir you pinch each misstep and failure. So each small determination is torn betwixt pragmatic, moral, ethical, and aspirational desires, and it’s astir which 1 you fto triumph successful nan moment. Gen wants to beryllium a bully sister, which conflicts pinch her selfish desires to beryllium singularly regarded, which conflicts pinch her simultaneous happiness for Arin’s occurrence and humiliating desire to beryllium happier than she really is; she’s besides alert of nan different life she could person had, yet grateful for nan affectional expansiveness that nan 1 she has had provided her, and suspicious of nan effect Arin and she person had connected each other. So connected and truthful forth.

JC: How did you weave your longstanding societal media presence—as a blogger (jemmawei.com, launched successful 2007), an influencer, and a columnist for years for nan No Content magazine—into nan activities of these sisters?

JW: I grew up successful an era wherever we were each conscionable flirting pinch nan internet, erstwhile you virtually couldn’t usage nan net if personification was talking connected nan telephone because they utilized nan aforesaid ligament aliases something, to each of a abrupt having nan internet—and societal media—be nan caller and untapped frontier of organization and expression, which of people meant opportunities for commercialized capitalization. I’ve ever been fascinated by nan measurement it’s changed really we discuss our narration to our imagination of ourselves, and really nan commercialization of characteristic hinges precisely connected nan seamless position of having those 2 selves beryllium successful harmony. But it’s besides a benignant of instantaneous feedback loop, wherever you are assemblage to yourself simultaneous to nan world’s consuming your performed persona, and you make micro-adjustments each nan clip based connected soul and outer feedback, arsenic if you’re existing pinch a reflector earlier you astatine each times.

Because I’ve had a agelong profession successful nan media, first moving successful advertising, past arsenic a presenter and simultaneously an online creator, I’ve had a batch of clip to contemplate nan region betwixt a consciousness and her manifestation successful nan world. I mean this not conscionable successful position of an online aliases nationalist facing presentation, but besides nan ways successful which we’re ever trying to minimize nan region betwixt our words and intention, arsenic writers. A batch of that sensibility watered nan grounds from which nan sisters developed. Not action wise—that would beryllium severely limiting for nan characters—but it helped create events and communicative movements that would champion trial retired these questions I had astir modern identity, ambition, and performance, and push them to nan brink.

But successful a pragmatic sense, I really tapped that societal media beingness for research. I’ve been beautiful unfastened astir my publishing journey, and truthful erstwhile I was tightening up nan past 5 percent of nan book and trying to factcheck and make judge I’d dotted each my I’s and crossed my T’s, I would conscionable inquire connected IG stories if group remembered this aliases that, and fto my Singaporean assemblage crowdsource answers for me. It was beautiful great.

JC: You group a agelong conception of nan caller successful Christchurch, NZ, arsenic Gen, who has been moving successful an crystal pick shop alternatively of going to college, strikes retired connected her own. How did you investigation nan scenes group there, including 2 historical earthquakes successful 2010-2011—disasters you see successful this section, on pinch Arin’s sojourn successful nan midst of shooting a large portion successful a film, a sojourn that becomes nan turning constituent successful their relationship?

I don’t spot that aspirational different aforesaid arsenic a mendacious self, but conscionable 1 of galore realities we could beryllium inhabiting if we made conscionable a azygous 1 of our micro-decisions differently.

JW: For nan longest time, nan copy earthquakes were really nan 2 poles of nan communicative that were grounded successful reality, everything other I benignant of freewheeled until it was clip to revise and factcheck (which is simply a full different process for a state arsenic quickly evolving arsenic Singapore is). I visited Christchurch erstwhile successful 2014 and was struck by nan consciousness of it being a metropolis retired of clip (this was a mates of years aft nan earthquakes). The metropolis was still struggling to effort and rebuild, but location were each these rubbled buildings and nan mobility of accountability: whose costs is this to bear, really does geographical calamity psychologically effect resilience and crime, what does it mean to travel of property successful a metropolis wherever you virtually cannot spot nan crushed beneath your feet? This was really, really absorbing to maine because Singapore has nary acquisition pinch earthy disasters contempt besides being an island, owed to our geographical position. I couldn’t get it retired of my mind: that immense earthy beauty adjacent to nan standard of imaginable disaster.

As I developed nan book more, nan earthquakes became nan 2 things I really had to day and activity astir since they really happened successful reality, a limiting parameter which became its ain trade situation for me. I started DM-ing random architecture firms successful Christchurch to inquire questions astir what it was for illustration to beryllium successful nan business of building successful nan clip of earthquakes, but I wasn’t trained successful investigation truthful I must person conscionable travel crossed arsenic nosy, I only sewage a mates of replies. Finally I saved up to do a investigation travel to Christchurch successful early 2018, wherever I fundamentally roamed nan city, took buses each over, and tried talking to whoever was consenting to talk astir nan earthquakes—literal strangers who were conscionable opinionated around. I went to nan quake exhibitions, talked to librarians, baristas, moreover went to guidelines extracurricular nan Environment Canterbury agency truthful I could drawback an agency worker coming retired for luncheon and inquire them astir autobus routes. By that clip I knew what nan large crippled points successful that portion of nan book would be, truthful I spent a batch of my travel looking for beingness locations that could correspond to nan character’s actions and circumstances, making those walks successful person, trying to retrace nan character’s steps past rework them based connected caller information.

Arin’s sojourn I had to really activity to standard up and down based connected what would beryllium pragmatically imaginable for an character who was conscionable starting out. For her, I tried connected truthful galore different paths for size. There was a play of nan book wherever Gen had moved to Christchurch and Arin had moved to Shanghai to earnestly audition for roles, trying break into nan monolithic Chinese play market, while their mother tries difficult to support adjacent to them from Singapore. I had truthful galore different clocks connected my wall and clip conversion charts erstwhile I was moving connected that type of nan novel. In nan extremity I scrapped it, because moving crossed 3 clip zones really sucked. And past I realized that for Arin, being capable to win wrong Singapore would beryllium a existent constituent of pride, a measurement to effort and person her sister to travel home—and nan movie segment successful Singapore was independent capable to beryllium elastic successful nan measurement my communicative needed it to be. So I started talking to board and filmmakers successful Singapore astir timelines, finances, grant seasons, casting calls, things for illustration that, and past recovered nan champion way for Arin for this conception of nan book.

JC: What has your acquisition been arsenic a personnel of literate communities successful nan U.S. (as an MFA postgraduate student astatine Columbia, a Stegner chap astatine Stanford, others) and Singapore? How do you enactment successful touch pinch your literate colleagues? How does this camaraderie prolong your work? And did I spot you’re going to beryllium collaborating pinch nan Singapore Book Council to mentor emerging writers and broaden nan literate organization successful 2025?

JW: When I touched down successful nan States successful 2019, I knew nobody. I was successful my precocious twenties and really making a difficult pivot, and truthful I had to build caller friendships from scratch. I’ll beryllium honest, for astir of my first semester astatine nan MFA, I felt for illustration I was connected Candid Camera. I wholly didn’t get nan American “How Are You,” and I still deliberation group shouldn’t inquire questions they don’t want answers to. It took a while for maine to find my hit and people, and past conscionable arsenic I was getting a small much acclimatized, nan pandemic deed and I had to spell home.

The pandemic wholly and utterly felled me. But I did commencement penning flash fiction, and slow started having an online organization of writers that way, and past nan adjacent clip I sewage backmost to nan States successful 2021, I returned almost pinch a vengeance. I was beautiful aggravated astir moving connected my book, but besides hung retired difficult pinch nan remainder of nan world that was besides emerging from lockdown, and made very bully friends successful New York that way. And I was very fortunate to person specified a awesome cohort astatine nan Stegner, we’re very close. The symptom for maine is, being world and coming to nan States, I’m not rooted to a metropolis nan measurement calved and raised Americans are, and truthful I do consciousness for illustration I’m ever saying goodbye to group I love. We enactment successful touch done a assortment of group chats, telephone calls, etcetera, nan measurement friends regularly do. But nan measurement it differs from regular friendships, I guess, is that we’re besides capable to corroborate each other’s creator reality, stock accusation and experiences truthful publishing doesn’t consciousness arsenic isolating, and commiserate and observe together.

And yes, I’m mentoring emerging fabrication writers pinch nan Singapore Book Council successful 2025. I deliberation it’s highly difficult to visualize a penning life aliases reality without examples aliases resources (see supra re: not that galore of us), and americium invested successful having those conversations backmost location wherever possible. The Original Daughter is an incredibly circumstantial Singaporean story, not the Singaporean story. I do dream of a world rich | pinch plurality and americium excited to facilitate that nevertheless I can.

JC: What are you moving connected now/next?

JW: I made each these plans and did each this investigation for a adjacent novel, and past erstwhile I sat down and started penning it was this full different book instead. I’m still successful nan early, friends stages pinch that caller book and don’t want to scare her disconnected truthful I won’t get excessively specific, but I’m hoping it won’t return different eleven years.

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The Original Daughter by Jemimah Wei is disposable from Doubleday, an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a section of Penguin Random House, LLC.